


we fell in the face of destiny

by warsfeil



Series: fate is against me, in health and in virtue [1]
Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M, fate au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 08:15:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12837012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil
Summary: Fate AU, featuring Knights as servants and Eichi as simply the worst master.“If I was a king, I must have been a bad one,” Leo says. He doesn’t recognize the voice of Archer, didn’t recognize his appearance, but there’s not much that Leo finds familiar, if he’s honest with himself. The first time he saw himself in Eichi’s vision, he barely recognized that.





	we fell in the face of destiny

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. i haven't edited this in the slightest because i wrote it in a leo tsukinaga-esque fit of manic inspiration and i need it out of my brain  
> 2\. it'll be a multi-part story and this is the first part and it's a sad ending and i'm sorry i'm like this

The thing is, Leo doesn’t remember _before_ very well. He’s a flurry of energy, of movement and emotions, bits and pieces of who he once was that don’t quite line up at the edges. His personality is made of nothing but puzzle pieces that have worn down until none of them fit together, and where does that leave him?

Well. Insane, probably. That’s the entire point.

“Ou-sama—“ 

Archer falls to his knees. Leo can feel it, can halfway see it, Eichi’s vision feeding into him and giving an angle into the world that he normally can’t see behind the heavy fabric of his blindfold. Archer makes a noise, but there’s only so much he can manage when his throat is torn, and his attempts at words fall as flat as his body does.

The blood on his hands evaporates the same as Archer’s body, red blood and red hair vanishing and leaving behind nothing but the memory that it was there once.

Leo thinks a lot of things might have been, once, but his memory is so unreliable, these days. 

Archer’s master runs; there’s a heaving sob as he does it, but Eichi doesn’t turn to look at him, so all Leo has is the sound to go off of. The footsteps vanish into the distance, and Leo turns towards Eichi, instead. 

“Good job,” Eichi says, and trails a hand along Leo’s jaw. Leo leans into the touch, automatically; the remnants of Eichi’s vision spell fades until all Leo can see is darkness, and he reaches out to hold onto Eichi like the only port in his storm.

“Hey,” Leo says, tilting his head to rub his cheek against Eichi’s hand. “Why’d he call me ‘ou-sama’?”

“Hmm,” Eichi says, a noncommittal answer. Leo doesn’t think he expected an answer, really, but he doesn’t know if he wants one, either. “Maybe it has to do with whoever you were.”

“If I was a king, I must have been a bad one,” Leo says. He doesn’t recognize the voice of Archer, didn’t recognize his appearance, but there’s not much that Leo finds familiar, if he’s honest with himself. The first time he saw himself in Eichi’s vision, he barely recognized that.

“You’ll just be my king,” Eichi says, curling his fingers along Leo’s chin, stroking down his throat like Leo is nothing more than a cat. “My fallen king.”

\--

Leo knows that he could see, once, because he dreams in full color and not the subdued pastels of Eichi’s vision spell. In his dreams, he’s someone else – someone more than he is now – but he doesn’t know who, the very concept slipping away whenever he opens his useless eyes again.

He sleeps in the same bed with Eichi, these days, curled up against the chill of the night and the bright contrast of his dreams. He doesn’t want to remember who he was. Everything hurts enough as it is, a dull ache in his chest and a pit in his stomach that he can’t get rid of no matter what he does.

“Did you have a bad dream?” Eichi asks, and Leo doesn’t know how it is that Eichi always knows the second Leo wakes up. Master stuff, he guesses.

“Yeah,” he says, but it’s a lie; he dreamed of silver hair fanning out against the grass, the sound of someone laughing, of pointing out shapes in the clouds.

Eichi reaches out and drags his hand through Leo’s hair, tugging at the strands until they fall into place. Leo shivers against the cold, against the touch, against the dreams that might be memories of things he wants to keep forgetting.

“Don’t remember it,” Eichi says, and tugs on Leo’s hair until Leo tilts his head back, obligingly. He isn’t surprised when he feels Eichi’s lips on his, and he sinks into the kiss like he sinks into Eichi’s touch and into Eichi’s bed. It feels like static on his lips, and it’s easier to concentrate on the feeling of power falling flush into his veins than it is to concentrate on something like dreams.

Everything Eichi has always has steel to it; the thread of a command. Leo has never disobeyed. He’s never so much as thought about it. Eichi could make him, he knows; the command seals are still hidden under Eichi’s clothes, over his heart, all three intact and waiting to be used.

Leo wonders what would happen if Eichi used them all, but it’s a passing thought like a summer rain before Eichi presses him back into the bed and trails hands down to his hips.

\--

“You’ll need to come to school with me,” Eichi says. Leo is still in bed, wrapped in the comforter, sitting up and blinking his eyes. It feels strange, without the fabric of the blindfold, and he brings a hand up to rub at the unfamiliarity.

“You go to school?” Leo asks, because that’s news to him, but most things are.

Eichi’s laugh is like the whisper of bells in the distance as he reaches up, pulls Leo’s hand away from his eyes and affixes the blindfold in place. “Is that better?”

“Yeah,” Leo says, and proceeds to slither back under the covers until none of him is exposed to air.

“I’m meant to attend school,” Eichi explains, moving away from Leo. Leo can feel every inch, whenever they’re apart, and it always leaves a taste in his mouth like death. “I haven’t been, since this began, but that isn’t unusual. I’m extraordinarily fragile.”

Eichi’s voice sounds tired, with a bite to it that Leo can’t quite make sense of, so he stops trying.

“Oh,” he says, instead, tracing a pattern on Eichi’s sheets. Ba da da… 

“Just follow me, in secret,” Eichi continues. He steps over, pulling the blanket off of Leo. He gets Leo’s foot, considers it, and then reaches out to tickle it with a dexterity that Leo finds, frankly, unfair.

“ _Noo_ ,” Leo whines, doing his best to wiggle away from it and winding up on the floor.

“Get dressed, or we’ll be late,” Eichi says. 

Leo rolls, sullenly, all the way across the floor to the door, slowly materializing his clothing as he goes. 

“Well,” Eichi murmurs, reaching down and hefting Leo up with strength that manages to surprise him. “That’ll do.”

Eichi doesn’t bother to cast the vision spell again, and so Leo simply fades out of the realm of what everyone else can see, reaches out to gently hold onto the back of Eichi’s shirt and follow after him. He waits until they’re in the car before he tries talking – Eichi’s family doesn’t know he exists, he’s pretty sure. 

“What’s at school?”

“Rider,” Eichi answers. “I’d have made sure you’re up for another fight, but we don’t have any time to waste. I think they’ll put together who I am if I’m away much longer. My family isn’t exactly an unknown name.”

“I can do it,” Leo says, because he can do anything, for Eichi. Eichi still has three command seals to use to push Leo to his limit, even if Leo doesn’t do it himself. There’s only five servants left to beat, right?

Eichi smooths out some of Leo’s hair, pulling it to the side and securing it with a hair tie. Leo reaches up to pat it, decides he likes it, and leaves it there.

“You’ll always win for me, won’t you, my fallen king?” 

“Yeah,” Leo says, because it sounds okay, coming from Eichi. He’s desperate to hear it, to keep Eichi near him, to keep this one thing that makes sense. “Yeah, I’ll kill them for you.”

\--

“Good morning, sensei,” Eichi offers, and that’s all the notice Leo gets before the vision spell slams into him and the fight is starting.

“Rider—“ 

There isn’t time. Leo surges forward, towards the man that’s centered in Eichi’s vision, hands outstretched, and he isn’t surprised in the slightest when another servant materializes in front of him. Leo doesn’t pull back, scrapes against armor as Rider tries to throw the weight backwards but only succeeds in knocking all three of them down.

“Ou-sama?” Rider says, from above Leo, but Leo can’t see any of them from the angle Eichi’s vision is looking at the scene, so he just strikes out, lashes out hard against the weight he can feel pinning him down.

“What did you—“ Rider tries to say, and then Leo manages to land a hit, solid against the warmth of Rider’s body. Rider is knocked away like a rag doll, and Leo can see him hit the wall. Eichi is moving, and it’s disorienting, but Leo doesn’t care.

“It’s inappropriate to do this at school,” the teacher says, pushing up his glasses. His hair is styled the same way as Rider’s, and it makes Leo feel like he’s seeing double.

“My apologies,” Eichi murmurs. “I wanted to take care of it as soon as possible, you know?”

The teacher raises a hand – there’s seals there, Leo’s aware, but Rider manages to get a good hit in on his stomach. 

“Ou-sama, you shouldn’t be doing this—It’s me, it’s—“

There’s a _bang_ , overwhelming and loud, and Rider stops. Everything stops.

For a moment, Leo isn’t sure what happened, until he sees the blood seeping out from underneath the teacher’s hand. 

“-- _Master_!” Arashi – no, Rider – yells. He makes it four steps across the room before he starts to fade; his hand grasps at the empty air as the teacher falls backwards.

Eichi opens his cell phone and lets the vision spell fade; Leo tries to get hold of his breathing, trying to come down from the battle lust. 

“Keito, I’ll need you to take care of the school,” Eichi says, and Leo stops listening to him. Keito is a green-shaped smear on Leo’s memory that he doesn’t give much weight to – an annoyed voice that listens to Eichi, but not without complaining about it. He isn’t something that Leo needs to think about, not when he has the memory of the blond-haired servant falling.

_Arashi_ , his mind supplies again, and _Rider_ Leo thinks, more loudly, because he shouldn’t know anyone else’s name when he barely remembers his own.

That’s the second person to have called him _ou-sama_ , though.

Leo startles when Eichi’s hands are back on him; Eichi presses his hand over the blindfold, presses it firmly down against Leo’s vision like there might be a chance of Leo seeing through it.

“Master,” Leo says, reaching up to press his hands over Eichi’s. He hesitates halfway there, and Eichi reaches out to thread his fingers through Leo’s. Leo evaporates his armor with a thought, careful not to let Eichi wind up hurt because Leo moved wrong.

“Don’t worry about them,” Eichi says. He moves Leo’s hand with his, presses down against Leo’s stomach until Leo is forced to take a step backwards, to align his body with Eichi’s behind him. Eichi is a comforting presence, a warm weight that makes Leo feel safe.

He doesn’t have to think about it. He doesn’t have to think about any of it, not with Eichi here.

“Master,” Leo repeats, a content sigh as he leans his head against Eichi’s shoulders and lets the memory of Rider fall away as easily as the memory of Archer. 

Two down is the only thing he needs to remember.

\--

“Master,” Leo starts, around the spoon in his mouth. He can feel the sun beating down on them where they sit in the garden, bright enough that his ice cream is melting almost faster than he can eat it. “Do you already know what your wish is?”

“Yes,” Eichi replies, without hesitation.

“Will you tell me?” 

Eichi makes a considering noise, thinking it over. “I’ll tell you,” Eichi says, “if you promise you won’t laugh.”

“Ehh? Why would I laugh?”

“It might seem funny, to a servant,” Eichi says. 

Leo pouts his lips out, reaching over for where he last heard Eichi’s hand. Eichi meets his grasp halfway, interlacing their fingers and tugging Leo forward with a sharp jerk that sends him leaning across the wrought iron table between them. 

“I want to be immortal,” Eichi explains, “and healthy.”

“You almost made me spill my ice cream,” Leo grouses, wriggling until the metal isn’t biting so hard into his hips and his ice cream is safely out of the way. “And that’s not weird.”

“How would you know if it was weird or not?” Eichi says, and tugs on Leo’s hand again, so Leo gives in, crawls up onto the table. It’s precarious, with his ice cream in one hand and a tenuous grip on the metal with his other, but he manages without falling.

“I’d know.”

“You’re very self-assured for someone who’s about to knock over _my_ ice cream,” Eichi says, mildly, and Leo freezes.

Eichi laughs, and there’s a scraping that signifies that Eichi is moving everything that needs to be moved so that he can pull Leo down into his lap. 

When Eichi kisses Leo, he tastes like raspberries.

\--

“Ou-sama?” Caster asks, and it’s starting to sound more and more familiar the more times it happens.

“I’m not a king,” Leo replies, and bats away a spell with his hand. It doesn’t do more than heat up his glove, with as little energy behind it as Caster used. 

Caster’s face twists into something that Leo can’t read. He’s not very good at emotions, not on himself or anyone else, and reading anything beyond Eichi’s laughter is nearly impossible when he has a memory bank that only starts two weeks prior.

“You don’t remember?” 

“I don’t want to,” Leo says, and lunges forward. Caster dodges, entirely too lithe, but Leo follows, hits the ground hard enough that Caster trips in the wake of the aftershocks. 

“I knew you,” Caster says, and Leo doesn’t want to believe it. “We were friends—“

“Berserker,” Eichi says, when Leo falters. No one else matters but Eichi, nothing else matters. 

“—I’ll fight you if you want to, but you should remember, first!” Caster snaps, and his red eyes look furious. 

“—Caster, look out!” 

Caster’s head jerks to the side in time to see the oncoming spell, Eichi’s magic forcing him closer to Leo, and Caster hisses like an angry cat. 

“Dirty tricks,” Caster says, fenced in by Eichi’s power and Leo’s range.

“It isn’t my fault your dog doesn’t have the skills to keep up with you,” Eichi says.

“ _Hey_!” the boy barks.

“Berserker,” Eichi says, and the command seal over his heart glows bright enough to be seen through the fabric of his shirt. “ _Kill him_.”

The command rips through Leo without any of the subtlety that Eichi usually uses. It’s an overwhelming urge, a need more powerful than anything else Leo has ever felt, can ever remember feeling—

Leo raises his hands, summons his noble phantasm. 

Caster’s eyes widen, and he turns, moving away in flashes of shadow in the night, but it isn’t nearly far enough to avoid Leo.

“ _Silent Oath_ \--“

Leo can feel it hit someone, but the rubble clouds Eichi’s vision. That’s fine. He doesn’t need to see to win, and Leo surges forward, sinking claws into the first warm body he can feel—

“ _Oniichan_!” Caster screams at the same time that his master screams “Rei!”, and Leo’s stomach bottoms out.

Caster smacks into Leo, shoves him backwards with enough strength that he could have been a melee class if he’d wanted to be. Leo’s hand makes a sick noise as he drags it back out of the stomach of the body he’d impaled.

“Oniichan—you’re so stupid—“ Caster says, and cradles the body.

“Assassin?” Eichi says, to no one in particular. Caster’s master is moving into the line of fire, over to Caster, over to Assassin, and it’s only then that they see the second set of command seals, the second set that marks him as a master to more than just Caster. 

“I couldn’t let,” Assassin says, reaching up with a hand that only smears blood across Caster’s cheek, “my darling brother be taken out by such a blow.”

Caster is crying, and Leo doesn’t understand, because they’ll both just come back in the next war, in the next war, in the next.

Aren’t they all already dead?

Assassin is dying, starting to fade in Ritsu’s – Caster’s – arms, and Ritsu turns furious eyes to Leo, blinking hard enough that more tears fall.

“Your _master_ ,” Ritsu says, spitting out the word like a toxin, “gave you an order, ou-sama.”

“Rittchi,” the master says, kneeling next to the brothers, putting his hand on the fallen Assassin. Ritsu doesn’t try to move him away when Leo steps forward, and while his master closes his eyes, Ritsu stares Leo down with nothing but betrayal in his gaze.

\--

Leo wears the blindfold to bed with no intention of sleeping. He lays next to Eichi, curled up, the memory of those red eyes piercing into him as though merely remembering them is damaging.

_Ritsu_ , he thinks to himself, a repetition of what he knows. _Arashi. Tsukasa._

It would be easier not to remember their names, to keep them as Caster and Rider and Archer, but forgetting is proving more challenging than he thought.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” Eichi says, turning over in bed to stroke his fingers down Leo’s cheekbone.

“Master,” Leo says, and leans in like he’s drowning. Kissing Eichi is hard when he can’t see, even if Leo is growing used to being blind – he gets his cheek, moves down until he gets to his lips, and then kisses until Eichi is groaning underneath him, twining fingers up into Leo’s hair.

Eichi is a blinding light that makes Leo forget everything else, and he lets the names of those he’s killed fall away in favor of the feeling of Eichi underneath him.

“Master,” Leo says, a thick purr that catches in his throat once Eichi is inside of him. “I—“

“What is it?” Eichi asks, when Leo cuts off, fails to say the words. Leo shivers when Eichi drags fingers down his bare chest.

“I want to see you,” Leo begs, because he knows it’s within Eichi’s power, knows that anything is within Eichi’s power. 

Eichi’s hand stills for a moment, and for a second Leo thinks that he’s asked too much – he’s just a servant, a tool in the war, no matter how nicely Eichi treats him or tells him he likes him – and then Eichi reaches up and slips the blindfold off.

The spell is dizzying, when it sets in. Leo sees himself reflected, eyes bright even in the dim lighting of the bedroom, and then the vision moves until his vantage is where it would be if it were his own eyes, looking down at Eichi’s.

Leo looks into Eichi’s eyes, blue and breathtakingly familiar for a reason he can’t place, and feels his body rise with pleasure.

\--

“There’s only one left, after this,” Leo says, adjusting his armor even though he doesn’t need to. “Right, Master?”

“Yes,” Eichi answers. He reaches out, the vision spell drifting down over Leo’s eyes until he can see even through his useless eyes and the blindfold. Eichi adjusts Leo’s ponytail, twining the unruly ends around his fingertip. “After this, just Lancer. Be careful against Saber. He’s one of the strongest.”

“Am I stronger?” Leo asks. He doesn’t know, not really. He doesn’t know how strong he used to be, or if he has any power at all, if Eichi’s mana isn’t in the equation.

“You’re the strongest,” Eichi says, and steps away. “You’ll win for me, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Leo says. He’ll win or he’ll die trying, though he doesn’t think Eichi would let him die, even if it came to that.

Eichi moves out of range of the fight the second they sense Saber. Saber flings himself down into view, trailing a meek looking blond who looks like he’d rather be anywhere in the world than a holy grail war.

“Ou-sama,” Saber says, and Leo’s heart lurches when Saber looks at him with Eichi’s eyes. “I don’t know why you’re like this, but I’m not letting you get the grail if you’re just giving it to him.”

Leo doesn’t react. He raises his arms, and Saber raises his sword with a click of his tongue and disappointment on his face.

The battle lust is quick in Leo’s veins when he moves forward, strikes out. His gloves take the brunt of Saber’s sword, and he ignores any of the cracks in his armor. He doesn’t have time to think about it when Saber is moving quickly, when all the thrusts are strong.

Leo has the advantage. It’s clear, after a few seconds, because even through gritted teeth, Saber isn’t aiming to kill, only injure.

“Ou-sama,” Saber says, wrenching his sword out of Leo’s grip and staggering backwards. There are cracks in his armor now, too, an ugly gash across his chest that bleeds as he inhales.

“I’m no king,” Leo says, automatically, and lunges forward at the first hint of weakness.

Saber crumples on Leo’s hand with a grunt. He drops his sword and tangles his hands in Leo’s collar, sagging with only Leo’s arm impaled in his chest keeping him upright.

“It’s fine,” he says, voice quiet. “Leo.”

Leo stiffens, because no one has called him by his name since – since – 

“Sena,” Leo says, and the name is thick on his tongue.

“We’ll forgive,” Sena says, and shudders, the end of his sentence lost as his body dissolves to return to the holding ground of all defeated servants.

“One down,” Eichi says, when he approaches, and Leo is grateful that he doesn’t notice that the blindfold is wet with Leo’s tears.

\--

Lancer is the last one they have to beat to win, and Leo keeps that knowledge in his chest. He doesn’t know what tricks Eichi has up his sleeve, but that doesn’t matter; Leo’s job is just to win, and Eichi’s is to plan.

He approaches Lancer, taking in the confidence in the man’s gaze, the tight armor and impressive muscles.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Leo will win.

“You look a little worse for the wear,” Lancer says, and Leo doesn’t know what he’s supposed to look like. Bright eyed and laughing in the sun, jumping off the top of the castle roof into the pond below, tangling his hands into silver hair and–

“Lancer,” Lancer’s master says, quietly, a slip of a girl with a determined expression on her face and no fear in her eyes. “I trust you.”

Lancer moves his spear into the ready position, expression hardening as he looks at Leo.

“I’m really sorry about this,” Lancer says. “I shouldn’t have let him break you.”

_Who_ Leo thinks, but he can’t voice it, because everything is happening all at once, so much at once. There’s a crack and Lancer is moving, towards Leo, separating into two identical versions of himself that Leo can’t tell apart – there’s a gun in Eichi’s hand and the other master is on the ground – Leo stretches his arms out towards both copies of Lancer and thinks about the familiar color of sky blue eyes – 

Eichi coughs. He looks down at the spear through his body, raising a hand to the wound and rubbing together the blood on his fingertips like he can’t quite believe it. 

“Master!” 

“I really thought we had a chance,” Eichi says, and there’s a thickness in his voice. When he coughs again, he coughs up blood, sprays it all over Lancer’s spear like a promise. 

The blindfold falls from Leo’s face as he moves, past the fading copies of Lancer, towards Eichi, towards the only person he remembers. Eichi’s vision spell is fading and Leo doesn’t notice it, barely registers that the world is filling with more color, with more light. Eichi was the focal point for everything he saw for so long, he doesn’t know how to process the world as anything else.

“Master,” Leo says.

Eichi isn’t looking at him. He’s looking past him, even as Leo reaches out to hold onto him, even as Lancer yanks his spear out with an awful crunching noise. 

“I hope your wish,” Eichi says, “is a good one.”

Leo’s lips move around the word _master_ one more time, as Eichi dies in his arms and his hold on the world starts to become tenuous. He looks up at Lancer, and in an instant –

_”It doesn’t matter how terrible of a king you are,” Sena said, tone dismissive even as his fingers curled through Leo’s to join their hands. “We’re your knights, aren’t we?” --_

_“I’ll follow you,” Tsukasa said, amethyst eyes earnest and glossy where he laid next to Leo, “until the end of everything.” –_

_“It’s a blood pact,” Ritsu murmured, and kissed Leo so he could taste the copper tang of his own blood on Ritsu’s lips. “It’ll tie us both together, even in death, so you won’t get out of anything that easily.” –_

_“You’re the king I chose to follow,” Arashi said, kneeling on the ground before Leo despite the battle grime that coated the grass. “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, or one I’ll ever take back.” –_

_“You make me rethink my wish,” Eichi said, sweat forming a sheen across his body and moonlight illuminating him like some sort of angel. “You make me want to stay with you forever, instead.”_

“If there’s a next time around,” Lancer says, but his voice is fading. No – Leo is fading, tears dissolving before they ever hit the ground, every sob that wracks through him muted and quiet. “I’ll do a better job at protecting you.”

The world goes black, and Leo is grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so sorry


End file.
